Rehearsal notes 1 – Whale – the sound and shape of things to come

“Greetings to you from the morning-filled home of your Whale Director ! ”

Below are some images , that I think came out of Tuedays rehearsals . They will be useful for establishing character :

A baby Raven

An old Inuit couple

An older Raven

An Inuit Kayak

A great whaling Ship

An arctic Seal

A White Bear prowling the Ice floes

And a Whale ….( I’ve even included a sound-cloud link to the song of whales , which Erin , Oliva and Anna you can use – as reference – for the call of the whale – that is one day no longer there )

All these images below , will help visualise the scene for you . “The ancient times” Olivia…we start in ….

Apologies to those cast members not in the Spires 1 space for long last night –

the cats cradlers

…we start with you on Saturday. It’s a long , long , long way to modern day Alaska !

The opening block will take a while , be prepared , we have to do it properly , to establish the style , the environment and the context ( the culture ! ) of the stage piece

Culture is very important here and you all MUST take a look at INNUIT FOLKLORE or North American ( ALASKA ) – INNUIT HISTORY

Don’t be lazy and play-dumb as we go through the next few weeks and not able to contribute anything because , you’ve not done ” the extra stuff ”

You’ll not get anything from the show experience and would be as well not being part of the WHALE CAST.

And as I take , what seems Mhairi ages, to block a tiny piece of script , please try to remember , it takes time to add in all the ingredients of a more Physical Theatre Performance .

It’s all floating round in my head easily enough , but I have to find a way to translate that to you , so you understand and then to physically take the time to stage it .

We will have to have :

Feelings of more natural interaction with one another on set
The ease of sitting and moving where you feel
The gathering , creatively using and sea-like return of props
The choral involvement as extra eyes on stage
And of course the ongoing presence of the WHALES – A concept that goes beyond the ordinary and becomes something magical .

So look at the images below closely and try and reference them back to harder work that was really well done ( for a first go at this style ) on Tuesday.

If you broke a sweat by the end of the night , you were giving it all it needed.

Physical theatre is physical by nature. It involves huge amounts of effort , focus and energetic concentration to do well. To make it flow seamlessly as if it takes no effort at all . Remember National Theatre Connections 2015 REMOTE as a great example of this . But the work that went in – was enormous !

Some of you will take to this physical style of acting ” like a whale ” to water .

Others may struggle a bit , probably with having to do more than one thing at a time .

Your co-ordination may temporarily come unstuck and you might panic and start to pull back on your performance delivery as a result.

DON’T !

Put your hand up and stop the rehearsal and just ask me to to go over it again .

Like PANTO , and the more difficult song blocks , you may have to come in to the Spires , a little earlier ( 10mins before rehearsals ) and go over things you have done – walk round the Spires 1 space and replay your moves in your head : think of the various props passages you have to complete ( What side things move to – Morgan , Freya , Sophie and Oliva you were excellent on Tuesday, keep,this higher standard of work up and the show will be in safehands as we add more cast into the space mix ) and also just to get a feel for the rehearsals room again .

We have a thing in ACTING , that groups like THE SPACE and ODYSSEY have been exploring . It’s called :

the TRIPLE CONNECTION :

YOU and the SPACE ( the rehearsal room )

YOU and the GROUP ( the people you are in scene rehearsals with , including the director )

YOU and your SELF ( the need to settle into your neutral state of being , before you begin . No outside brought into the room ( Miss Dickson/ Mr Docherty ) , no school , no home strife , no daily baggage . Each rehearsal is a fresh start , just for those few hours you are here .

And on that note : please remind me it’s an 8.30pm finish ( unless otherwise in your sheets ) for you on a Tuesday . ( I’m so used to working till 9 with other casts , that I sometimes forget ! Sorry for that ! )

The triple connection is what you need to make , every time you come in to an acting space , to make sure the rehearsal goes well or as well as it could !

#Knowing your surroundings to recognise your memory of things done

#Relating to your fellow actors in a positive way , building trust through better working relationships – not just being friends with them

#Trying to keep friendship out the space , so that better acting can happen without fear of friendship going wrong

#Making a pact to leave your personal relationships with people , firmly in the corridor with your bags and jackets and collecting them again on the way out.

When the jacket comes off …so should your customary friendships. And then , lo-and-behold, another kind of Spires working relationship takes hold :

RespectTrustHonestyPerformance- Camaraderie

Even better friendships will come from this place , friendships to last a life time of PACE and beyond.

A good example to use for this , is people you already know better through your work in HRH ROB ROYAL : Cameron and Abby

They have been friends a very long , long time in PACE. When they both started in Teatrotinis together as much younger STS

Now their friendship wasn’t ever instant; they simply acted beside each other and knew each other through the work they jointly shared.

But this better friendship grew exponentially from the working relationship they would build , every time they were in the drama space together, or in the same workshops or projects , events , teams groups or STS assessments

The process , they will probably remember as being the most meaningful one that brought them closer, was probably ” WHEN THE WHALES CAME ” – a movement assessment they had to complete in SPIRES THEATRE SCHOOL much like the ODYSSEY 16 group are doing right now

Their group was assigned a film called ” When the Whales Came ” , that told a story of pilot whales washed on shore in Newfoundland , bringing a message to the people who lived there , of never forgetting to care about the things that really matter in life.

They got DISTINCTION for the work they put into the assessment and more than that , became good and soon great friends from it.

Because they gave themselves the room and time , to grow with each other naturally , the kinds of things that good working drama-friendships need here to last.

They rarely see or speak to one another “out of PACE” , but they know instinctively , at the ping of a text , they could trust one another with their lives.

That only happened because they shared the same passion for drama from the start , the same belief in artistic things , the desire to create in a room full of honesty , trust and respect. A common drive for perfection here.

There have been many similar drama- friendships between better STS , friendships that start as nothing but grow to mean everything. They always come through the work done and are never instantly made in the back corridors, or vending machine alleyways of Spires.

I hope this show experience starts a few , new better Spires Theatre School drama friendships . Solid Working relationships that build into something really special , really worthwhile coming here for.

It always amazes me why people want to bring their outside friendships into the room . Why they want to limit themselves to the demands that this kind of friendship brings.

We have a policy , to try where ever possible to seperate fiends groups ; not to be bad to you , but to give you a chance to discover new things about yourself and the way you can positively relate to others . You can’t do that when you are worried that your friend might feel insecure by your actions .

You can’t have the weight of having to carry that in the space , along with your own inhibitions .

Eventually the baggage goes , but it is harder to let go of the friends groups , unless you are forced to , or you chose to …for your own good

( Good friends will stick with you whatever , because good friends ) understand you both need ” space ” to grow.

At the end of the rehearsal, when I asked you how you felt about one another in the room , you smiled ( which is a good sign of feeling happy ) but there was still a slight lack of group trust , group spontaneity , group togetherness.

I’ve no doubt this will change . This show is going to force you to have to act better with one another in ways you are not used to …and you will have to face many things together to make it work , in time.

Uncomfortable acting truths are sometimes necessary to hear , in the rehearsal space , to clear the drama floor for the work to be presented on it .

The way I worked on Tuesday will show you how I intend to go

Fast
Complicated
Demanding
Picky
Relentless

But don’t see it like that – that’s all sounds a bit too negative

Let’s See it as :

Embracing the pace of the text and the swift passage of our actual time in rehearsals.

Showing everything we see : from the cold of the ice to the undulation of a body wave , to thick mittened stiff old hands , to the agonising birth of a spirited baby Raven from under a muslin cloth and even the dazzling bladdered light of creation ….spilling out to all four corners of the room globe .

See the Creative potential inside you . The thing that brought you to PACES front door and never forget my passion is getting that out of you so you can live every moment here with pride and self belief .

David Holman is a great playwright and this is a beautiful , short , meaningful play for everyone , not a random collection of consonants and vowels on a page . Words matter here. They contain a message for the world . Still relevant today , if we are to have any chance of seeing these wonderful creatures of the Arctic in future . The seal , the polar bear , the whale …

The polar ice caps are melting , chunks of them are fallin away each month into the sea , raising the worlds oceans , animals are dying all over the world because they can’t find food , can’t hunt as their natural habitat is changing daily ; Planet Earth is becoming a trash can of pollution and utter mindless rubbish.

So forgive me if I’m a bit picky When it comes to play texts like this . It’s because I think you could have a real positive dramatic effect , when you act this play …if you speak as of you really mean it !

…and maybe one or two members of the audience will go HOME and think twice about what they saw that SaturdayMay14th night

Remember more about it , than a group of young PACE kids on stage , doing a nice wee Movement show .

They might actually start to think how they have to begin to care more for the planet , think of small changes they can make with their family , to protect the environment , for their own children’s Earth , in future.

Suddenly picky is looking more like , picking out the words that matter and really feelingthem when the acting needs to land on this audiences open ears !

And finally RELENTLESS ?

Is Mhairi relentless ? Yes , I suppose I am . I keep going on about things because I have to , because to give up is to give in

A choice I spoke about always having to make , in a blog that maybe a few read , once upon a SPIRES ago…

Give up or give in

When it comes to shows, I never give in . But for a moment last night , a split second , it flashed through my mind :

Is this too much for them ?

Is it too soon ?

Am I going to get them over the higher performance-bar I’ve set for them in this short a time ?

It was right there , as I momentarily came out my “rehearsal mode” and looked up and saw some confused faces , staring blankly , tired bodies beginning to slouch under the pressure of having to stay focused on boxes with seemingly little to do

It was there just long enough to make me doubt my method ?

But a funny thing happened , I looked round the room , at the walls that closed us in together , and it was as if every show I’ve ever done in that Spires 1 space – flashed back at me .

I remembered how hard it is to start something new . Because although it’s all in my head , it’s not in yours yet .

It’s all still way down deep at the bottom of the submerged ice berg and it’s a cold , dark and lonely drama land down there , till we start to climb up to see the light of theatre-day .

And something about knowing we’d get there , in the end , brought me back to the space and you again.

Because every show process is like this , every show process is tough at the beginning . And yes we may lose a few along the way , that’s inevitable …we may be stuck at the icy bottom depths for a while , we may even think of giving up on ourselves , because it’s too hard.

But we won’t give in , we won’t give up on this play! Because it matters , more than you know.

Like the people of the Northern Ice , we will survive the comlicated rehearsals , adapt to the physical demands , and thrive in our relentless , demanding , picky drama environment .

Bring it on !

Faces will soon lose their blank stares , bodies will become strong enough to bear a long focused Stare , minds will be opened to the possibility of another way of doing things and the show will come through our fun and fiendly play .

Pep talk done for the week !

Take some of these notes I gave you on Tuesday to heart:

Don’t go backwards , push on each time you come to rehearse

Pause is the moment you own an audience

Don’t rush to get the lines out , savour them like a last precious meal

Understand the words and why they are in the line ?

Subtext is the hidden language you have to find in a play – here-in lies your feeling and “the way to act”

Always make your stage moves count , don’t hide when making them, see and be seen

Think of the space as a playground for you to have fun in , don’t limit yourself to one swing or a slide.

Do the unexpected , the unpredictable , “play the moment”

Let your gut instinct , be the one thing you follow in drama , it is never wrong , because its how you feel at that moment.

LEARN YOUR LINES , after every blocking session , so you don’t have your script next time and you can really start to have fun !

Think of what you wished you had in rehearsals that night and bring it next time ( water , a pencil to mark script pauses and moves , a better prop to use , deodorant , a change of top …or maybe even – your wonderful brain ! )

——-

https://soundcloud.com/bbc_com/bowhead-wh

Acting is about finding out what personal knowledge you can bring to the text you must speak . Without understanding the message , there is only an empty , meaningless sound

You can say the lines ….

Or you can understand and therefore have a chance at actually feeling them

In the opening of Whale there is a written a monologue , now made into a tri-logue , but you must speak as ONE : tavauvussi suurusit ” Greetings from the people of the Northern Ice ” and we are suddenly transported to a place of wild , dangerous , untamed beauty . We are moved from here to there , in the first utter of a different voice.

We’ve recently started some voice work , so you should know that immediately

Lifting , energising , articulating and placing the sounds , will give you a better way in to the text

You have , as young actors and actresses to deliver , as if you understand the very heart of this frozen inhospitable land at the top of the world .

I hope you can now , with the help of these images , with the direction being given in this post. Work on this opening with confidence , clarity and better understanding – to move the audience , by the end – to tears !

Like this:

I feel after Tuesday that I was going into this show with the wrong mindset and my mindset was to tell the audience a story and then turning into a whale but that's not what it really is its about showing the audience how much whales mean to us and telling them a story that comes from the heart not a story that comes from the script
It was really a coincidence that in class today we were learning all about the jape use and the ships wanting to kill the whales and that but I think I need to research more than the lines I have been doing a lot of research but now as we go into whale I feel like a have been doing it in the wrong topic
Really exited (if I make it on time) for Saturday Can't wait to get stuck in and show the rest of the cast what we done Thank you for the link will difenetly listen to that straight away thank you Mhairi
E X

Morgan grantMarch 16, 2016

I love Tuesday nights rehearsal!!
It was so great to start the show to see what the opening scene was like, the Inuit people are so interesting, there culture is exciting! I have also started looking up some golfing, to give me subtext for the Florida scene!! As much as it is later in the script I figured there was no harm in starting a little early!!
I also started looking up the whales and the danger that the artic animals are in, I had some knowledge of it before but I wasn't aware of how great the danger was!!
See you Saturday X
Morgan Xx

Elena DicksonMarch 16, 2016

Thankyou for all the gorgeous pictures, they are so wonderful and inspiring...
On a more serious note i just wanted to say that i am sorry for my unfocused behaviour on Tuesday i can assure everyone that it wont be happening again and i will also be making sure that i keep all of the outside stuff away from the space so i can allow myself and others to focus. So i am very sorry to the people who were outside doing the cats cradle. It wont be going on again.
Sorry x
Elena x

Megan LauderMarch 16, 2016

I enjoyed Tuesday night. Being outside the rehearsal space gave me a chance to really work on the cats cradle and understand how Mhairi wanted it to work/look. I had never really heard of the cats cradle before and it was amazing to see it from go from a small bit of string to a bigger scale.
I have been doing some Inuit research and when looking over the script have already started to form images in my mind of the cold ice and the the way that they would have survived in these conditions.
I have not long finished my geography block at school and the environment and climate change is something which really interested me so feel like I will really connect to this play on a personal level. It is all up to us to make the changes to make sure the planet survives and along with it all the great creatures featured in this play.
Really looking forward to next rehearsal - bring it on :) Meg xxx

Nadia CoiaMarch 16, 2016

Those images are adorable (especially the baby raven?) I feel like I could definitely get a lot of acting and subtext out of what the Old Innuit couple do and say, they are quite a crucial part for the story and it is quite a hard role to play but I am definitely up for the challenge, I realised that I have been very similar in what parts I have been playing, playing it safe with the comfort of old ways but I think I need to branch out into more interesting parts, more dangerous parts, because (for me) I would have to think more into it and think more to understand it, playing the couple will be a challenge but I know it will improve how I act how u see other roles,
I really like that fact that this play does not only incorporate extremely good subtext and words and acting, I like that it talks about an extremely relevant subject, Whaling is an awful travesty that goes on even now, people go out an kill Whales for their Blubber to make oils and lipstick, it's like elephant hunting (killing the animal for only one part needed)
I am really looking forward to the performance, i cannot wait☺
Nadia xoxo ?

Ben AndersonMarch 17, 2016

Sounded like the rehersal was a success well done guys good work again Mhairi thanks for the pictures and taking the time to post this
Ben

Anna Boulton-JonesMarch 17, 2016

Thankyou for the pictures, after looking at them and doing my own research I feel I have got more of an understanding of the words I am saying. I hope this will help to bring more feeling to it and by march, as you said, it would be great for the audience to go away thinking about our show, questioning what they could do to help save the world we all share!
Anna Xx

Lucy QuinnMarch 18, 2016

I sadly couldn't make it on Tuesday as I've not been very well this week, but from what I've heard although it was challenging, it was very fun. I love when you get past the stage of tricky blocking and understanding and everything just becomes a bit more fun! Can't wait to see what happened on Tuesday and start to really get into the show.
-Lucy x

Olivia NicholsMarch 20, 2016

This post had helped the way I will think and act towards our show. I've know since the beginning how much extra research would have to go into Whale and going into rehearsals I have done some background research to do with my part.
The note that I know I need to start doing is to use the stage as a playground .As part of the blocking is now done I can't wait to fully experiment with this aspect on Tuesday. The wee bit at the end the Whale done with you was so fun and brought a real sense of freedom to my acting and storytelling. I do hope I become good friends with my fellow Whales !
I think also that it mean a whole lot to the Whale cast if people who watched our performance did go home and rethink how much they contributed to global warming and what they could do to stop it. Our message would have got out there !
Olivia x